The Demand Lens
Most industry insights tell you what is happening.
The Demand Lens is built to help you understand why, before the market makes it visible. It approaches market behavior through the lens of emotional intelligence: understanding how human needs, regulation patterns, identity formation, and cultural sentiment shape travel decisions long before they surface as visible demand trends.
The Demand Lens is a private, paid Sojourn feature designed for leaders, founders, and operators who need more than trend headlines. It translates emerging traveler behavior into emotional demand signals and turns those signals into strategic direction you can apply, designed for those shaping experiences, not simply responding to them.
It blends cultural interpretation, strategic intelligence, and practical decision guidance into one integrated view of modern travel demand.
What this is
The Demand Lens is a strategic interpretation instrument.
It helps you identify the emotional ‘job’ travelers are hiring experiences to solve right now, so you can make sharper strategic choices in:
• Brand positioning
• Experience design
• Messaging and storytelling
• Offer architecture
• Loyalty and retention
• Partnerships and placement
What this is not
The Demand Lens is not a forecasting report.
It is not a data dashboard.
It is not a generic trends list.
It is a thinking system designed to help you recognize what is forming beneath visible demand signals.
How it works
Each edition follows a consistent interpretive rhythm:
Signal Inputs
You answer a short set of prompts based on what you’re seeing in your own world (guest behavior, booking patterns, sentiment, objections, cultural cues).
Interpretation
Your inputs are translated into a clear Demand Signal: what it is, why it’s rising, and what it replaces.
Strategic Application
You receive a concise set of implications and decisions: what to double down on, what to remove, what to simplify, and what to test next.
The Brief
You’ll leave with a one-page internal memo you can share with your team.
The Demand Lens framework
These signals function as underlying emotional drivers of modern travel behavior. They often appear before visible market trends and influence how guests choose, evaluate, and remember experiences.
Framework note
The Demand Lens is organized around 7 Emotional Demand Signals.
The seven Demand Signals form the fixed core of The Demand Lens. While how these signals appear will evolve across cultural and market contexts, the core framework remains intentionally stable to preserve shared language and long-term clarity.
These are not demographics. They are not trends.
They are recurring human motivations that surface through travel behavior.
1) Restoration Demand
Travel as regulation. Nervous system relief. Softening after overstimulation.
Shows up as: quieter itineraries, slower pacing, sleep-forward wellness, nature immersion, simplicity with care.
Replaces: ‘maximize the trip.’
Strategic question: Are you designing for recovery, or stimulation?
2) Meaning Demand
Travel as personal significance. People want stories they can carry home, not just photos.
Shows up as: cultural depth, craft, place-based rituals, learning, heritage, purposeful itineraries.
Replaces: ‘luxury as surface.’
Strategic question: What does your experience help guests understand?
3) Identity Demand
Travel as self-expression. People choose stays that reflect who they are, or who they’re becoming.
Shows up as: distinctive aesthetics, values alignment, community belonging, strong point of view, design-as-language.
Replaces: generic premium.
Strategic question: What kind of person is your brand helping guests become?
4) Intimacy Demand
Travel as closeness. Smaller, warmer, more personal. Fewer steps between guest and care.
Shows up as: fewer rooms, host presence, recognition, micro-moments, private dining, thoughtful details.
Replaces: scale as status.
Strategic question: Where can you remove distance?
5) Trust Demand
Travel as risk management. Guests are tired of disappointment. Proof matters, quietly.
Shows up as: clarity, transparency, fewer exaggerated claims, consistent delivery, ‘what you see is what you get.’
Replaces: marketing gloss/buzzwords.
Strategic question: Where does the guest feel uncertainty, and how do you reduce it?
6) Agency Demand
Travel as autonomy. Guests want to choose their own rhythm without friction or forced programming.
Shows up as: modular experiences, flexible check-in/out, choose-your-own rituals, no-pressure upsells, intuitive options.
Replaces: itinerary control.
Strategic question: Are you designing for compliance, or freedom?
7) Belonging Demand
Travel as social nourishment. Not crowds, connection.
Shows up as: small community moments, shared tables done well, gatherings with intention, curated introductions, ‘alone together.’
Replaces: isolation-as-luxury (for many segments).
Strategic question: How do you create connection without performance?
What you’ll receive each edition
Each Demand Lens edition includes:
• The Signal (what’s rising + why it matters)
• What it replaces (what’s fading)
• The strategic implications (brand, product, experience, marketing)
• What to test next (3 experiments)
• The memo (one-page internal brief)
The prompts
Use these prompts to generate your signal inputs. Answer quickly and honestly.
A) Behavior shifts
• What are guests requesting more often than six months ago?
• What are guests complaining about (even subtly)?
• Where are guests lingering longer? Where are they disengaging faster?
B) Language + sentiment
• What words are appearing more in reviews, DMs, or conversations?
• What feels ‘over’ culturally? What are people tired of?
C) Conversion + demand
• What is converting better: restoration, design, adventure, culture, wellness, privacy, community?
• What is being questioned more: pricing, value, claims, logistics, trust?
D) Experience design
• What parts of the experience feel most emotionally ‘sticky’?
• What parts feel unnecessary, performative, or outdated?
Method Note
The Demand Lens blends editorial interpretation with an AI-assisted synthesis layer that helps translate inputs into clear signal patterns and strategic memos.
AI functions here as an instrument, not an authority. The lens, framework, and final interpretation are developed and directed by me, Ana Carini Seiford, founder at Sojourn.
How often this runs
Seasonal editions (every few weeks).
Each edition reflects what’s shifting now, not what’s already obvious.
Who this is for
You’ll get the most value if you’re:
• Building or operating a hospitality brand
• Leading product / experience / marketing decisions
• Navigating brand positioning in a noisy market
• Trying to design for what guests will want next, not what they wanted last year
How to use this internally
If you run a team, share the memo and ask:
• What are we currently optimizing for?
• Which signal are we actually serving?
• Where are we accidentally designing against the signal?
• What would we remove if we believed this signal fully?
• What are three experiments we can run in 30 days?
This is the work beneath the work, seeing demand before it becomes a headline.
New editions will appear here seasonally. If you’re a paid member, you’re in.
Demand Signals (Published)
→ Restoration Demand — Issue 001
Forthcoming Signals:
Trust Demand — Issue 002
Identity Demand — Issue 003
Agency Demand — Issue 004
Intimacy Demand — Issue 005
Meaning Demand — Issue 006
Belonging Demand — Issue 007